Dawning
by White Aster
Summary: Jazz, Soundwave, a very personal favor, and tactical use of emoticons.    Jazz reset his optics. "What, is snarking over IM some kind of Decepticon mating ritual I didn't know about?"


_(Set after Revenge of the Fallen. Assume that Jazz's spark and processor were saved after the first movie, but he was physically incapacitated due to structural problems and spent RotF immobile.)_

Jazz was glad to be alive. This went without question. Being brought back from the brink of deactivation by Ratchet's medical prowess and the timely arrival of the Ark's med bay was just about the best thing that'd happened to him since the war started, and he was extremely grateful.

Really. He was. Even if he was, essentially, berthbound while Ratchet machined him a new torso in between patching everyone up and battling Fallen Primes and such.

Even if he was _bored out of his helm_.

It wasn't _so_bad, Jazz kept telling himself. Certainly better than that time on Nrr'tox IV when he'd been hurt, being hunted by indigenous wildlife, and no one had known where he was.

Lennox's squad, recognizing a fellow injured soldier, would swung by whenever they were on-base. The Autobots did the same, someone coming by a few times a day on their downshift to gossip and generally keep him entertained. Even Skids and Mudflap's rambling sparkling idiocy was welcome, and Jazz found that they loved hearing about old Cybertron. Jazz gladly told them the more exciting tales of history, mythology, fiction: stories they'd never heard before, having been onlined practically as the war broke out. And when all else failed, he had human entertainment.

Still, storytelling, the internet, sympathetic griping over the fossil-fuel aftertaste to their energon, and gossip could only keep a mech occupied for so long.

In an effort to be useful and keep YouTube from eating his processor, Jazz tied himself in to Teletraan's communications array. He wasn't a communications model, but spec ops mechs were heavy on communications monitoring to begin with. He set his processor to dabble its mental digits in Teletraan's sensor stream, welcoming the flood of data. His sensitivity and precision were boosted, his range increased to include a quarter of the planet and a good chunk of its atmosphere and orbital space.

The humans' EM output was an incredible morass of signals flying between the surface and orbital satellites. Phone, internet, data...all of it bouncing point-to-point-to-point from thousands of satellites in orbit, hundreds of thousands of transmitters and receivers on Earth. Finding something anomalous, something telling, something _off_in that sea of signals was like pulling one gear from a transmission. It was an important mission but too time-consuming to set a mech to when there was plenty more to be done around the base and beyond.

Jazz, on the other hand, wasn't going anywhere.

After a few days of acclimation to the hardline connection, Jazz unarchived some old intel from his mission banks, wrote a few filter programs, cracked his mental knuckles, and bent all of his spare processing power to his mission.

It wasn't easy, but then Jazz would have been disappointed if it had been. Blaster was usually the one butting heads with the Decepticon communications officer, but Jazz had had more than enough close, personal, and often painful experience with Soundwave's security measures to respect the mech's work. He was incredibly good at what he did, and so it took Jazz two weeks of analysis and the aid of several of Teletraan's more robust processor threads to tease out the Decepticon signals piggybacked on the humans' satellite chatter. Some triangulation and Teltraan's sensors zoomed all the way in gave him a tiny visual of Soundwave, silvery protoform wires all but obscuring the telecommunications satellite he was attached to.

Jazz had grinned, sent the information on to Optimus, and toasted Teletraan with some well-deserved high grade. Optimus, as Jazz had expected, did nothing drastic with the information, including telling the humans. The best spy, after all, was the one you knew all about, and the humans had made it clear that if they ever found Soundwave, they'd try to shoot him down. A useless gesture, as Soundwave was much too savvy to be taken by surprise by any weapon they could muster against him.

Instead, Jazz kept an optic on Soundwave. He was in geostationary orbit and relaying ground-to-ground as well as Earth-to-space signals. The former had the length and frequency of status reports and short relayed orders spread among several different planetary sites. Their encryption was too dense for Jazz to even bother attempting to decode them, but he noted the vector of the transmissions as points of interest. The same went for the interstellar communications. They weren't vectored to reach Cybertron or any known colony and were too weak to get much further than the outskirts of the solar system. They were, however, angled toward Saturn. Prowl had reported the Ark's detection of the Nemesis lurking on one of the Saturine moons just in time to avoid it. It was good to know that it hadn't up and gone wandering in the meantime.

_So, Soundwave, my man,_ Jazz thought. _Stuck in orbit playing relay, huh? Decepticons're laying low, volume is light, so it's probably not even interesting relays. And there you are, not even Blaster to taunt or play Cyclohex with. Sounds boring. I wonder..._

Jazz did not consider himself a skilled hacker, but then most human systems didn't even require one. It took him only a bit over a day to hack into the satellite owner's control systems, access their server-side copy of the satellite's activity, and filter out what he was looking for: requests that weren't being relayed through but instead _originating_in the satellite, as one might expect if, for instance, an onboard Cybertronian was using it as his own personal internet connection.

A lot of the activity that flitted across Jazz's feed was expected: countless hits to general informational sites about anything and everything Earth-related, some fairly successful attempts to hack into various low-level US government systems, and a constant barrage of current events information from news sites and Twitter feeds across the globe. Work, essentially. Jazz was amused to also find exactly what he expected buried in there: active (in some cases _very_active) online gaming accounts, epic crawls through video and audio streaming sites, enough torrenting activity to give the RIAA and MPAA heart attacks, and what appeared to be quite extensive and innocuous IM conversations with equally innocuous humans.

Jazz couldn't make fun of him too much. He was himself embroiled in several heated forum debates about the relative merits of various virtual instrument software packages in producing progressive vs. goa trance, not to mention the Blizzard forums. Still, much could be learned about a mech by what he did for entertainment, and this was a side of Soundwave Jazz had never seen before.

He blamed the first IM on boredom.

He blamed all the subsequent ones on Soundwave.

**NotDedYet4:**Aw, you figured it out.

**SkyNetLegion:**You were not particularly subtle. Or did you think that I would not keep track of who accessed the satellite's raw feed?

**NotDedYet4:**Naw, I did. Was kind of hoping you'd think I was some punk hacker, though.

**SkyNetLegion:**You're not?

**NotDedYet4:**Punk I'll take. Not really a hacker, though.

**SkyNetLegion:**Accurate assessment.

**NotDedYet4:**Aw, don't be shy. Tell me how you really feel!

**SkyNetLegion:**Why did you even bother?

**NotDedYet4:**Same reason you're still talking to me: bored. out. of. my. mind.

**SkyNetLegion:**Grounded?

**NotDedYet4:**In every sense of the word. Ratchet is the worst motherhen ever.

**SkyNetLegion:**His reputation precedes him. Especially if he could repair you.

**NotDedYet4:**He's a miracle-worker, what can I say?

**SkyNetLegion:**He must be, if he can repair a torn spark casing without access to properly milled cybertronium blanks.

**NotDedYet4:**Sure is!

**SkyNetLegion:**Or any way to reshape it. Unless he has an ultraheat forge tucked in his subspace.

**NotDedYet4:**He DOES have an amazing array of stuff in there...

**SkyNetLegion:**Or a full med bay's equipment required to stabilize your spark during the whole process.

**NotDedYet4:**MIRACLE!

**SkyNetLegion:**I see. -_-

**NotDedYet4:**...did you seriously just emoticon at me? Seriously?

**SkyNetLegion:**^_^

**NotDedYet4:**Gah!

So yeah, it went like that for awhile, both of them bored enough to snark and patter and distract the other, dropping just enough not-quite-classified intel to make it worth their while. Yes, the Decepticons HAD seen the Ark coming in-system and for some unexplained reason had allowed it to pass unmolested. That put Prowl in a foul mood that was only slightly mollified by Jazz's educated guess (based on the slightly desperate tenor of the Decepticons' energy-stealing raids) that they'd let them pass because the ship was either damaged or running on energon-fumes or possibly both.

Jazz was equally sure that there was some serious sparksearching going on in the Decepticon ranks, with the Fallen gone. Their raids were hit-and-run, and they several times had melted away before the Autobots got there rather than get into a fight. Their entire MO had changed, as if they were waiting for something. Jazz wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Soundwave in particular did not seem in the least broken up about the loss of their...patron. When Jazz asked about it, more out of curiosity than anything, Soundwave's reply had been a string of 2channel emoticons so arcane that Jazz had had to exercise his Google-fu to translate it. By the time he'd determined that it mostly meant "frustration, with a side of annoyance and good riddance to bad rubbish", Soundwave had logged off and moved on to World of Warcraft. For the rest of the night he wouldn't reply in anything but increasingly inscrutable abbreviations and emoticons. It was one of the more amusing methods of refusing to answer that Jazz had ever seen.

As the weeks passed, Jazz found himself having more fun than he had anticipated. Soundwave, for all his reputation as a grim, ruthless soldier, had a quick, dry wit and an exacting patience that Jazz wished on half of his scouts. He found himself thinking, as they disparaged each other's class choices in WoW while Jazz lazily attempted to hack the satellite feed again and Soundwave just as lazily stopped him, that Soundwave was (or at least knew how to be) the kind of mech Jazz wouldn't mind getting to know.

Which, a practical part of his processor acknowledged, might be exactly Soundwave's intent.

Which was why Jazz was slightly worried when Soundwave disappeared without a word. A Soundwave out of sight was never reassuring. The Ark's scanners had recorded him launching off into space (Saturn-wards, Jazz couldn't help but notice) and had lost track of him shortly afterwards.

Jazz reviewed Soundwave's transmissions. He doubted that Soundwave thought them hidden anymore, but there likely hadn't been much he could do about it. There hadn't been anything off-pattern right before he left, only a short transmission from, then back to Saturn. A summons, perhaps.

Jazz cycled his optics thoughtfully, then on a whim checked all his inboxes. No messages, except for a note to their usual 5-man that he'd be AFK for awhile. Ah, well, Jazz thought. It was fun while it lasted. And thankfully he didn't need the distraction anymore. Ratchet had told him just that morning that his parts were finally done, and he was scheduled for surgery the next morning. Jazz could have danced for joy and planned to, later. Still, this little project had been a fun and middling-productive way to spend the downtime.

Not that he ever made the mistake of thinking that all the bantering was anything like _friendship_. Jazz had learned better than that through hard, painful experience. It never paid to assume that a Decepticon held any goodwill towards you, no matter how many times they'd had your back against the Lich King.

Still, until all were one and all that, and at the very least Jazz didn't think he'd done anything to piss Soundwave off.

Which made it all the more surprising when Soundwave captured him about a month later.

Okay, captured was, perhaps, too strong a word.

Jazz, newly cleared for duty and still reveling in being able to _move_, had gleefully taken an assignment to scout out the Geysers area of California with Wheeljack. They had received permission from the American government to build a prototype energon production facility, and 'Jack was hopeful that they could build a geothermal refinery efficient enough to make it worth their while. It was an easy mission: Wheeljack was to do the science, and Jazz was to do the reconnaisance. Normally Jazz would have balked at two weeks of unpaved roads and muddy potholes, but in this case he would have headed into the Smelting Pits themselves if it meant some time away from Diego Garcia.

He and Wheeljack had finished their first sweep of the area, and, upon finding no traces of Decepticon activity, decided that splitting up was acceptable. Wheeljack had headed back to a promising fumarole-rich area to take some more extensive readings while Jazz headed further in to check out a few others. Despite the mud and the utter lack of reception on the radio, Jazz was enjoying himself. The scenery was beautiful in that messy, unformed organic way, the sun, when it broke out of the clouds, felt good on his plating, and he was just...happy to be alive.

Then something streaked out of the sky, coming down in the field next to him with a crash and an explosion of dirt. Jazz swerved in surprise, sliding in the mud and transforming. He came up against the base of a tree, blaster in hand, aiming before he even thought. ::Jazz to Wheeljack.::

::Acknowledged.::

::Something just came down nearly on top of me. Re-entry of...something.::

::Space trash? A new mech? No one's due for weeks. Got a visual?::

Jazz scanned the area but the angle was wrong and the air fouled with debris besides. ::Not yet. Made an awful racket for space junk. Tracking now.::

::Keep the channel open.::

::Will do.::

Movement across the road registered, glowing red optics and a mech-sized shadow resolving into the outline of Soundwave's sensor panels and a familiar identifying ping. Soundwave's panels fanned, still steaming from re-entry, but he stopped when he located Jazz. He stood there, waiting, no weapons visible.

Jazz stared at him from across the road, slowly lowering his blaster but not putting it away. He tried for cheerful-with-a-touch-of-prudent-wariness. "Well, well, look who's back. Come down to say hi?"

Soundwave just looked at him, his optics bright and cycling oddly. More movement slithered along the ground, and Jazz just had time to register a flash of silver everywhere before Soundwave was on him. The blaster was the first to go, not so much torn from Jazz's hand as unbalanced by a slim tentacle sliding between palm and grip, pulling the handle away and letting the weapon drop. Jazz took a step back, realizing the danger, but by then Soundwave was everywhere, thicker lines twining up his legs, curling around his arms, sliding over his chest plating. The same lines that he used for hacking into everything from satellites to Autobot prisoners.

Jazz cursed, fumbling for the comm line to Wheeljack and finding it...still open.

::Jazz? Who is it?::

Jazz paused, cocking his head at Soundwave in confusion. Soundwave tilted his own head and static washed over the open comm line before clearing. All right, Jazz thought. He _could_jam it, but wasn't. Did he want Jazz to call for help? Was it some kind of trap? But if it was, why not have someone go after Wheeljack simultaneously?

::Soundwave alone,:: Soundwave finally sent on a private channel. ::Unarmed. Wishes...no harm. Conversation, only. In private.::

What? Then Jazz reviewed his little speech again, seeing all the modifiers clustered around the central indicators. Soundwave, as well Jazz might expect from a comm officer, had a deft mastery of glyphwork, his choice of symbols fine-tuned to carry more information than simple literal meaning. His entire tone was...odd, strained, urgent, but without aggression. Instead, it thrummed with restrained excitement and a surprising amount of goodwill.

Jazz paused, processor taking stock. He was not, truly, restrained in any way. Soundwave's tentacles were versatile, sensitive, but not that strong. Jazz could break them, he was almost certain, if he so chose, likely before Soundwave could stop him. Though those lines were within easy reach of several vulnerable ports, Soundwave made no effort to hack him. Jazz's blaster was on the ground at his feet, completely within reach. Soundwave wasn't blocking Jazz's short- or long-range communications. Jazz could call the entire Ark for help, if he so desired, and Jazz could detect no other Decepticon signals within his considerable sensor range.

He was being...nonthreatening, Jazz realized. Kinda.

The full sensor sweep did, though, give Jazz a better look at Soundwave's energy field. It pulsed in time with Soundwave's optics, restless and excited and shot through with energy signatures that Jazz hadn't seen in...sweet Primus, was that what he thought it was...?

His concentration was broken by Wheeljack's worried ::Jazz! Reply!::

Jazz held Soundwave's optics for a long few astroseconds, weighing options, then replied, ::'Jack, it's Soundwave.::

::Slag, we never should have split up. I can be there in-::

::I don't think he's here to fight. He's alone, unarmed. I could take him. He says he just wants to talk.::

::Could be a trap.::

::I don't think so,:: Jazz sent, underscoring it with firm mostly-certainty. ::I've got it under control, 'Jack. I don't comm you in an hour, send in the cavalry.::

::...You're sure? That's enough time for him to scramble your signal so bad that we'd never find you.::

::If he was going to, he'd have done it by now.::

A pause, then: ::All right, if you say so. Keep him away from your ports. And if I don't hear from you, or my sensors pick up any more Decepticons, I'm coming over there.::

::Fair enough. Jazz out.::

Silence descended on the line, and Jazz shifted on his feet, mostly just to see if he could. Soundwave didn't hold him, the tentacles moving with him, the tips tracing transformation seams gently. "Awfully forward," Jazz said. "You didn't even buy me dinner first. Want to tell me what this is about?"

"Require...a favor," Soundwave said, his voice...well, it had been thousands of years since Jazz had actually heard Soundwave's voice, but it sounded rough to him. The limbs holding Jazz shifted with a liquid shuffle of contained protoform. Jazz was fascinated despite himself, even as the tentacles split into finer filaments and slid slowly into the seams of his armor, one sliding directly over a medical port on its way to a strut. Jazz was tempted to call 'Jack again, but didn't dare take his eyes off the metaphorical ball.

"A favor, huh? And this wasn't a favor you could ask for without hacking me?"

"Not hacking you," Soundwave pointed out placidly, though the evil little slagger wriggled a tentacle over the port again. And over other sensors, right next to it, that sent a jolt of electric heat through Jazz's circuits.

"Not right now," Jazz granted him. "What's with the bondage games, then?"

Soundwave shifted on his feet, coming a step closer, then was silent for a moment as his energy field flickered fitfully. Slowly, oh so slowly, he pulled back, all at once, his tentacles uncurling, uncoiling, sliiiiding back out of where they'd burrowed, over every sensor in Jazz's entire body, it felt like. Jazz braced himself, as direct sensor contact could be incredibly painful, as Soundwave no doubt knew. But it wasn't. It was just the right pressure, Soundwave's protoform still heated just enough from re-entry. The shivering, full-body bolt of pleasure nearly whited out Jazz's optics.

"Apologies," Soundwave said.

"Lying fragger," Jazz said, his circuits still tingling. He tilted back his head to keep Soundwave in view, letting a smile curl his lips. "You're not sorry at all."

Soundwave didn't answer but looked entirely too smug for Jazz to be wrong.

Jazz settled back on his feet, circuits clearing enough to feel like he could have a reasonable conversation, even if Soundwave did tower over him. Primus, the fragger was almost as tall as Prime. "So. What's this favor? Or did you seriously just come here to grope me?"

"Reproductive imperatives, active. Jazz, desired."

Jazz blinked. That _had_ been what he'd seen in Soundwave's field. "Now? Why-eh." He stopped himself from finishing the sentence: _why the hell did they activate NOW?_The reproductive imperatives were triggered by a complicated mix of environmental factors, system statuses, and mech preferences. Asking such a personal question would have been tactless at best, rude at worst, and Jazz was aiming for as little rudeness as possible. Still, the imperatives were usually smarter than that. Jazz had never heard of them coming online in frontline warriors, could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard of sparklings being born during the war at all. The lack of safety, the lowered energon rations...all were nearly always more than enough to keep the protocols offline.

Soundwave spread his hands, his protoform tentacles flowing around him to spread as well in a silvery corona of uncertainty. "Situation remains. Aid requested."

"Me? Why me?"

"Jazz, desired." "Desired", as in a sufficiently advantageous result.

Soundwave took a step closer, until he was on the road, just out of arm's reach. Way within tentacle reach. That close, his field brushed Jazz's personal sensors, buzzing with energy, inviting... He felt...good. Jazz knew that was just his own instincts responding to a breeding mech, but wasn't sure that he cared. It had been so long since he'd been near any mech who had felt that _alive_. Who didn't feel stressed, stripped down,_barren_under the friendship and pleasure.

Jazz reset his optics, modulating his own field to hide the emotion. "What, is snarking over IM some kind of Decepticon mating ritual I didn't know about?"

"Jazz, desired." "Desired", a Decepticon variant this time, one of the more complimentary adjectives used in relation to enemies, denoting one of equal or higher skill, strength, and rank. A worthy opponent.

There were the tentacles again, reaching for him, some delicate advance scouts sliding over Jazz's collarstruts, dipping back and under to stroke the exposed cabling and mechanisms beneath.

"You are _crazy_," Jazz said softly. _I could kill him right now. He could kill me. We're both crazy, for not even trying._It wasn't true, though. He knew it, in code that was deeper and older than any mech-made war. Time was, that killing a breeding mech was an abomination. Time was, that the very thought would have been abhorrent. How crazy had the universe become, how far had they all fallen, if a mech's chosen mating partner (and he knew that was true, could feel Soundwave's need thrumming through his field, heady and absolute) was thinking such a thing?

"Jazz, desired." "Desired", as in sexually powerful, a sparker, a virile giver and taker of pleasure.

Soundwave took one more step, fingers tracing over Jazz's shoulder plating and down his arms. Jazz tilted his head back to look at him. This close, Soundwave looming over him, Jazz was practically standing in Soundwave's EM field, his own field resonating in sympathy. Primus, it felt amazing. Like sun on his plating. Like that first ventilation when he'd come back online.

"Jazz, not saying no," Soundwave noted quietly.

It took Jazz a long few kliks to find his vocalizer. "You noticed."

Soundwave's ventilation sounded suspiciously like a human sigh. "...saying yes?"

If he was crazy for choosing life over death, just this once, well, fine.

Jazz reached up, grabbing a handy piece of the Decepticon's chest armor and hauling himself up. Soundwave's arm appeared beneath him, holding him up, and Jazz pulled until he was against Soundwave's chest, until he could feel the thrum of the bigger mech's spark cycling furiously within his frame.

"Yes," Jazz said, surrendering, shutting down defensive, offensive, tactical, _everything_and activating sparking protocols so old he needed to unarchive them. They settled in his systems like hunger, flushed heat through his spark that spread to his entire frame, but it was hard to separate that from the warm stroke of Soundwave's protoform diving in to trace every taut cable, every hidden sensor. Jazz locked his hands so he wouldn't fall. "Bring it on."

Soundwave all but purred, spark surging as he relaxed his containment field, his spark energies melding with his EM field to rush over Jazz in a torrent of indescribably ripe need/want/need. Jazz's systems growled in response as he dropped his own containment, spark pulsing as he _pushed_.

They both cried out, Jazz muffling the sound with a mouthful of neck cables. Spark-joined, Jazz could feel some of what Soundwave felt, could dive and swim in the emotion, feeling it for his own, and right now the cold, ticking calculation that Jazz would have expected was overwhelmed with pleasure, spikes of instinct-driven need, a fierce desire to claim and possess, and a warm, gentle, parental want. It was all incredibly intimate, a blinding, very personal pleasure, and part of that came from his frame, Jazz knew, from where he felt Soundwave twining in almost every internal he had: flowing around his engine block, filling his joints, flattening to stroke his very spark chamber. It felt invasive, _other_but here, now, also indescribably good.

Jazz wondered what Soundwave felt in him, but whatever it was, Soundwave didn't find it lacking. He pushed his pleasure back at Jazz, along with a wave of energy that set Jazz's every circuit burning deliciously. Jazz pushed back, stroking, caressing, locking them both in the feedback loop that drove them higher, faster, farther. Jazz's spark was a building wave, a gathering charge, and Soundwave twisted, writhing underneath him, wanting it, ripe for it, _built_ for it, and Jazz couldn't hold back even if he'd _wanted_to, letting it all crash into Soundwave's spark with a scream of ecstasy that Soundwave echoed. The Decepticon's larger frame flared with the charge as his spark pulsed, took, absorbed, and came up still hungry.

Jazz laughed, his own frame still overcharged, shaking with the overload and filled with Soundwave's twitching protoform. "More?"

Soundwave's optics were cycling so quickly Jazz doubted he could even see. Not that he needed to. He arched, his tentacles undulating over sensors Jazz didn't even know existed, circling and rubbing, until Jazz lost himself again in the storm of life-in-metal beneath him.

Later, much later, when Jazz had gathered enough of his processor to register and be annoyed by the mud and bark dug in between his seams, he asked "Why me?" again.

"I mean, not that I can fault your taste, but I always figured that your type was, y'know, bigger. Spikier. More determined to take over the universe."

Soundwave's look was impenetrable, sensor panel flicking in some emotion that Jazz lacked the processor power to translate. "Lord Megatron...unavailable due to duties."

Well, wasn't that interesting. Also, damn, the mech obviously had more self-control than Jazz. "Really? That's cold, man."

Soundwave, unsurprisingly, didn't take the bait, merely replying with undercurrents of amusement, "Results of Lord Megatron's labor will soon be self-evident."

Jazz froze in the middle of resettling his armor plating. "That sounds like a threat."

"Negative. Promise, non-threatening." Soundwave drew up to his full height, one back panel flung up and wide, then made a sound of satisfaction. "Suggestion: contact your leader for update."

Jazz pinged his long-range comms with a bit of trepidation. Had there been an attack? He was ashamed to say he wasn't entirely sure whether Soundwave had been jamming him throughout that sparkstorm. Had this been some ploy to keep him away from the base? ::Jazz to Optimus. Nonhostile Decepticon contact here. Status?::

The wait for the return was the longest few kliks of Jazz's life. ::Optimus here, Jazz. Nonhostile Decepticon contact here, also. Condition still green. There are...negotiations underway.::

::Negotiations?::

::Yes.:: Optimus' comm was filled with modifiers for surprise, caution...and hope. ::Megatron is personally negotiating a cease-fire.::

"A _cease-fire_?" Jazz started in surprise, looking at Soundwave. He sent a short acknowledgment to Optimus, who was obviously busy, along with shorthand for "I'll get the full story from you later."

Soundwave nodded, and Jazz spread his hands in wordless confusion. "Why now?"

"Cybertronians dying," Soundwave said, matter-of-factly. Jazz's spark ran cold with thoughts of cosmic rust until Soundwave continued, "Rapidly approaching minimum viable population."

"You mean the Decepticons?"

"Negative. Cybertronian race." Soundwave sent him the calculations. Statistics were never Jazz's strongest area, and he couldn't vouch that Soundwave's sources were completely accurate, but he knew enough to check over the numbers. They were chilling.

Jazz offlined his optics. When had it come to this? Yes, this war had been going on for thousands of years. Yes, there had hardly been any sparklings in that time, due to lack of security, resources, desire, or some combination of the three.

It made this whole mad day even more worth it, Jazz thought. Even if he never saw the sparkling (and he did want to, Jazz realized, he really, really did), even if Soundwave kept it as he no doubt would, as was completely his right as its carrier...it was worth it. But...Primus. "I...hadn't realized that it had gotten that bad. Primus, how far we've fallen."

"Your reaction, shared by many," Soundwave said, his voice clipped.

Jazz looked at him for a long moment, processor humming. "Including Megatron? Is that why he's calling for a cease-fire? You telling me that suddenly, _now_, he's worried about keeping our race alive?"

Soundwave drew himself up to his full height. His tone gone chill and complicated. "The Fallen: gone. Lord Megatron: awake, aware."

"What does that mean?" But Jazz was already analyzing Soundwave's word choice, unpacking the layers of modifiers around his terms. "Awake", a philosophical variant indicating transition from insensibility. "Aware", the same, as well as a connotation of clear-headedness. Paired with "gone", caged in a modifier of absolute negation indicating all works, all plans, all influences destroyed. "Oh wait a damn minute. Does he really expect us to believe that this was all the _Fallen's_fault? To just...trust him?"

Soundwave weaved a lazy shrug with two sensor panels. "Jazz trusts me," He pointed out, stepping closer so that one large hand could carefully cover Jazz's shoulder. "Until all are one," Soundwave said, not even changing the Autobot versions of the words: all Cybertronians, united in victory.

Jazz opened his mouth, then shut it again, too tired to protest, even if he had a leg to stand on. "Is that what all this was about?" He waved a hand between them, indicating the two of them and everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. "Restoring our race?"

"Negative," Soundwave said, turning back toward the field he'd arrived in. "Motivation: simple. Sparklings: desired. Jazz: desired."

"And that's it. Simple as that." Jazz couldn't keep the amusement from his voice.

"Affirmative." Soundwave turned to look back at Jazz. The sun the Decepticons had attempted to destroy not so long ago broke through the clouds, shining off Soundwave's arrays, his plating, wherever he wasn't streaked with mud. Jazz wasn't the only one who'd gotten dirty in their little dalliance. "Decepticons: simple."

Jazz laughed. "Oh, like the Pit, you are."

:: ^_^:: Soundwave sent, then paused. His next sending was rife again with amused modifiers. ::Will notify of sparkling transit.::

Jazz looked back up from trying to find his dropped blaster. "Transit to..."

::Ark? Diego Garcia? Jazz's choice.::

Jazz dropped his blaster. "Wait, wait, what?"

::Half of clutch, Jazz's,:: Soundwave sent, the information _bleeding_amusement at Jazz's shock. ::Will notify of sparkling birth, sparkling transit. Estimated time: five Earth months.:: A final, complicated compound signifier: respect and thanks and "we should do this again sometime" all rolled into one, and then Soundwave was engaging his thrusters, soaring up to escape velocity and gone before Jazz could finish picking his processor off the ground.

"..._clutch_?"

Jazz sent him an email: Evil slagger.

His inbox pinged a minute later: :)


End file.
